Enacting authentic inclusivity using action learning

By Children by Choice CEO Daile Kelleher, Project Officer Rachael Smith, and Education and Community Engagement Coordinator Bec Jenkinson.

Action learning is an inclusive form of professional development where people explore a topic and work towards growth and change in practice over time.

It is a strengths-based process that involves cycles of questioning, gathering information, reflection, action, and implementation.

Children by Choice is an independent Brisbane-based non-profit organisation, committed to providing unbiased information on all pregnancy options – abortion, adoption and parenting.

In July 2020, Children by Choice joined WorkUP Queensland’s Action Learning Project to get support for and enact authentic progress towards inclusive practice. Our Action Learning Project revolved around the development of Children by Choice’s Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

Supported by WorkUP Queensland and the Action Learning process, Children by Choice has built momentum for change across our organisation, with our staff team and Management Committee engaged in developing our Reflect RAP.

We identified a shared desire to explore and understand our organisational history and how we worked with First Nations peoples. While this will be challenging, it is also essential to acknowledge the role our organisation played in the ongoing structural violence against First Nations people. ​We also built the capacity of our team, with ongoing organisation-wide cultural training and team building activities focusing on Indigenous culture local to our service.

Through the Action Learning Project, we have also turned our attention outward, seeking opportunities to listen better to Indigenous communities. We partnered with Health Consumers Queensland to undertake Kitchen Table Discussions and hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women about their experiences of pregnancy decision making, contraception and abortion. We have also committed to visiting First Nations services when we travel across Queensland for other events.

While preparing for WorkUP’s Action Learning showcase in March, the genuine impact of this project quickly became evident. The most important learning has been our new understanding that the relationship is the project! This outlook helps us to slow down and focus on genuine relationships, which cannot be rushed.

We have relished the opportunity to look closely at and reflect on where we have come from, where we are right now and ready ourselves to create the inclusive future that Children by Choice aspires to.

This project has allowed us to make our Reflect RAP so much more than a box-ticking exercise – it has become an opportunity to show that we are doing genuinely meaningful work. We look forward to officially launching our Reflect RAP and incorporating it into our 50^th anniversary celebrations.

We are excited and proud of where we have gotten to as a service and our ongoing commitment to reconciliation. Participating in the Action Learning process has been a huge part of that process.

WorkUP Queensland is continuing the conversation around diversity and inclusion with our upcoming intersectionality series. Click here to register.